Priya Sarukkai Chabria’s novel Generation 14 is a bit of a conundrum. In the future, earth is governed by a dystopic society, in this case ‘the global community’, where humans give way to clones and a subversive force grows from within to overcome a deadening, totalitarian regime. It charters territory that is commonly explored by science-fiction blockbusters and cult classics like Bladerunner, The Matrix and Equilibrium, but Chabria’s lucid and poetic prose makes her work stand apart.

The novel reads like a diary maintained by a 14th generation clone 14/54/G who suffers a memory chip glitch in her mechanism and begins to remember her past life. Driven by feelings of lust and longing she seeks out answers to existential questions that slowly begin to plague her. The ‘originals’ realising that she might hold the secret for which her original was killed, try to obtain it from 14/54/G’s ‘visitations’ (memories) in a desperate bid to maintain their status quo.

You have to wonder why in most futuristic works, clones, robots, androids and the like are tantalised by and eventually assert their right to be human. By using a phantasmagoria of ‘visitations’ in her work, Chabria explores, the possible reasons and side-steps the usual clichés. Weaving in episodes of Indian history and appropriating the fabulist form, the author reveals a plurality of voices in her work. A parrot, a fish, a wolf, a monk and a disconsolate mother in the wake of Asoka’s Kalinga war make for a thoroughly interesting read and are evidence to a contemporary quest for tolerance.

What made you decide to write a science fiction novel and revisit subjects that have already been the basis of popular fiction and film?
I’m suffering from reality fiction fatigue! Speculative fiction permits the writer greater freedom to explore the Big Issues like identity and memory. To me this is an intensely meditative genre which is why many serious authors venture into it. I construct a world where some of our basic societal rules are changed and so a question arises: how would humanity now respond? It forces us to think, and learn more about ourselves.

Why is it that futuristic novels or movies paint a bleak image of the future?
The supposed ‘bleakness’ is born, not from despair but its opposite: a deep care for the world. It’s a pointer to where we might be heading if we do not become more responsible and compassionate. As Sartre pointed out, even the gloomiest novel is seeded in hope because the author has spent time thinking about the problems.

Does your writing critique the excesses of both capitalist and socialist societies or is there some other ideology that informs your writing?
No specific ideology as such. I critique intolerance; and the presumed right of our species to place ourselves on this planet’s centre stage, to the detriment of other species. Which is why I give equal voice to animal characters in the novel. This springs, too, from my love for folk tales.

Have you been pleased with the way your book has been received?
Indeed! Generation 14 was risky to write and publish. But it is a many-layered book, and is being received as such. To some it is spec-fiction, to others, an intense love story. Several read it as a political satire; another as a book on parents and children. All of this affirms my faith in the engaged, intelligent reader.